March 28, 2008

Of all the 'citizenship' issues facing the NFL, which one do you think they're choosing to focus on lately? If you guessed any of the above, you'd be wrong. Instead, a report surfaced on SI.com Wednesday that the NFL is debating new rules about hair length.

Yep.

The rule banning long hair on the field was proposed by Kansas City. It does not require players to get haircuts, but does "require them to tuck it up inside their helmets," said Atlanta president Rich McKay, chairman of the league's competition committee.

An example of the dangers of long hair given in the article was Troy Polamalu, who "had his hair grabbed by Kansas City's Larry Johnson and was thrown to the turf after an interception against the Chiefs."

So apparently the Chiefs are saying Polamalu shouldn't have been allowed to tempt Johnson with all those flowing locks just crying out to be grabbed. Maybe Johnson should find a more sportsmanlike way to stop Polamalu? Just a thought.

But really, isn't some Home for Lost Boys around the league on the verge of taking in Pacman Jones? (It could even be us!) Aren't there a few more pressing issues when it comes to player safety?

Even aside from that, it would just be a bummer for me as a fan of the offensive line of the New England Patriots to see their 'rally mullets' curtailed by the scions of decency at league headquarters. Without his fierce fiery mane, I'm afraid my boy Matty Light especially might be at a disadvantage in future playoffs.

February 03, 2008

People decry the commercialization of Christmas. The Super Bowl, meanwhile, is unapologetically commercial--in fact, it's a day in which we celebrate commercialism, in the form of the TV ad spots that will air up to 40 times during the main event.

People decry the rank competitiveness of shopping around the holiday season. This day celebrates competitiveness, invites trash talk, recognizes that sometimes wanting to absolutely kill the other guy is what makes us stronger. (Unless you're the Patriots, in which case, you should just apologize.)

I've always loved people who know who they are and don't try to be anything else; similarly, I enjoy TV shows and entertainment events the most that aren't trying to be anything they're not. The Super Bowl is a great example of an event that takes the American concepts of the free market to their symbolic extremes, proudly flexes its muscles, and double-dog dares you not to sit back with some sauce-drippin' wings in a La-Z-Boy recliner and just revel in it. Hoo-ah. When it comes to the couch-sittin', snack-snarfin', celebration of it all, I'm all about the Big Dance.

This is not to say, though, that the hype can't go too far.

For example, it appears that in New England, the time we've had on our hands before the main event over the last week has been more than we could handle. Or, at least, this is the only explanation I can think of for why not one, but two books celebrating 19-0 have already appeared on Amazon. com from our local papers; for why Mayor Tom Menino would declare a week in advance that the victory parade is scheduled in Boston for Tuesday. Have we lost our minds?

Then there was the story by John Tomase in the Herald yesterday that an anonymous source has revealed that a team employee filmed a Rams walk-through prior to the 2002 Super Bowl. This story hasn't been second-sourced, and here's the key paragraph:

It’s not known what the cameraman did with the tape from there. It’s also not known if he made the recording on his own initiative or if he was instructed to make the recording by someone with the Patriots or anyone else.

This is sort of like the "story" that emerged a few weeks ago in which an anonymous source suggested that "a member of the 2004 Red Sox" demonstrated to said anonymous source the proper technique for shooting up with steroids. This was in turn broadcast by a talk-radio host; nothing more has come of it. While most of us in New England have come up with ridiculous ways to get over-confident during this bye week, it seems some others have been coming up with new ways to cast aspersions on the Patriots' wins so far this decade.

The latest pseudo-scandals have even drawn the attention of the federal legislature, who apparently don't have enough to do most of the time. Sen. Arlen Specter has said he is summoning Commissioner Goodell before a freakin' Congressional panel to explain why he destroyed the SpyGate tapes. Uh, maybe so this whole stupid thing wouldn't drag on unnecessarily for months if not years?

By the way, Arlen, isn't there a steroids scandal in baseball to stir up controversy over without actually solving investigate? To say nothing of a disastrous quagmire of a foreign war to sort out? An economy falling apart at the seams? What ever happened to that Specter-Leahy Bill? Still in committee?

No. Clearly, bringing down the Patriots' dynasty is a far more pressing matter for the country. And when FOX reports that more Americans vote for American Idol than in Presidential elections, we're supposed to be surprised?

Others with too much free time are putting it to use just working up the hate. The most recent ESPN: the Magazine has a handy info-graphic showing that among fans of the 30 teams in the league not playing in the Super Bowl today, greater than 50% want the Patriots to lose. Thank goodness they had time to put that in-depth investigation together. I would never have sensed this had they not.

Meanwhile, with six hours of pre-game hype-time to fill, FOX is showing us a warm, fuzzy, 20-minute segment on the Manning family during which we've been supplied with the key information that Eli Manning is a mama's boy.

Like I needed FOX to tell me that, either.

So I guess it's safe to say the only thing I don't like about the Super Bowl is the wait. Let's see some football already.

P.S. This just in--Eli Manning was friendly to Tom Brady on his way out for warmups, but Brady did not appear as friendly! He nodded at Eli, while Eli patted Brady on the shoulder. Will this be another Handshake-Gate? Like coach, like quarterback?!? Stay tuned to FOX for answers!

January 07, 2008

So there I was the other day at Jiffy Lube, where the only things to read are Car and Driver and ESPN: The Magazine. I picked up an issue of ESPN featuring a teaser line on its cover: "Why You Shouldn't Hate Bill Belichick."

Written by Tom Farrey, the article is an attempt to draw parallels between the Hooded One and the Social Darwinist movement of the early 20th century. Along the way, it also attempts to link Tony Dungy to Muscular Christians, and throws in the twist that New England stadium namesake King C. Gillette was a Utopian Socialist, the political opposite of a Darwinist. (I smell a scandal!)

Let me say first that I appreciate stuff like this. There aren't enough attempts to link football to its wider cultural and historical context among sportswriters, especially as compared to baseball. On the other hand, I do have to say that if you're defending Bill Belichick by making obscure comparisons with historical figures, perhaps you're damning him with faint praise.

Personally, I think people shouldn't hate Bill Belichick because we don't know Bill Belichick. Yet, paradoxically, that's also the real reason I think some people hate him.

He denies us the right to know him. He defies our demands that he appear vulnerable, at least sometimes. Some people appear to take this personally and hate him because of it, and at the same time they anoint other less successful coaches, like the sainted Tony Dungy, as somehow more deserving. (For another example of this preoccupation with personality over performance, look no further than the sentimental vote for Brett Farve that made Tom Brady's election as this year's league MVP, appallingly, not unanimous.)

Hence Bill Belichick's vicious-cycle relationship with the public at large: he reserves the right to tell it when something is not any of its business, and also not to tell it why. The public responds with a volley of personal invective meant to provoke him into a debate, Belichick refuses to take them up on it, and the cycle of frustration continues.

As long as we're connecting the world of sports to our wider cultural context, why not question what it is that makes us require deep interactions via the media with an NFL coach whose job is not-- as one friend of Belichick's was quoted as saying in the ESPN article-- to work for the media?

I thought that same friend had the best take on the situation as a whole: "Over the last seven years, [the Patriots] have been the best team in football. If anybody has any intelligence whatsoever, that's how they'll remember the team and the coach."

Interestingly enough, that friend was Bobby Knight. And he does have a point, no matter what he's done to undermine it with chair-throwing, player-choking antics. (I certainly hope no one would go so far as to put any behavior of Belichick's in the same category.)

What's more, I do think people will remember this year's Patriots that way. In fact, I fully anticipate the day when the same people who currently excoriate Belichick and the Patriots for their perceived crimes against congeniality will look back with nostalgia on this era of football as the Golden Age, with Belichick as its Lombardi. They'll also probably be crowing about how dishonorable the game has since become.

P.S. ESPN made a really smart move with this article by enlisting the "stat stars" at FootballOutsiders.com to create a statistical evaluation of the top coaches in both leagues, in a sidebar that was probably more valuable than the feature article it accompanied. The good news for Pats fans, as the Jags advance in the playoffs, is the scouting report on Jacksonville head coach Jack del Rio: "Against evenly matched opponents, he too often gets outcoached."

September 11, 2007

The first inquest into the matter of the Patriots Cameraman has officially been settled, and the news is terrible for Patriots fans. The NFL announced today It has been reported today that its review of the videotape seized from a credentialed Patriots employee on the New York Jets sideline Sunday contained footage of the signals called from coaches to the Jets defense. Penalties have yet to be assessed, but the consensus is the Patriots will get slapped big time--it will certainly cost them in heavy fines, but the talk has also turned to how many draft picks the team will lose next year as a result of this.

Note: What follows is my perspective and my perspective only. I don't represent any other Pats fans whatsoever.

What's going to go on forever, though, is everything else the team stands to lose. Credibility is the first big one that's going out the window. Already the championships are being brought up, and no doubt some enterprising NFL official will be investigating them, as well. I wouldn't be surprised if every Patriots game for the last five years was brought under review for evidence of similar behavior. Meanwhile, as we know from, say, the Barry Bonds case, actual proof and convictions are far from requirements for aspersions to be cast on every accomplishment the Patriots have made in the Belichick era.

As a fan, and a gung-ho, emotional, passionate, extremely biased fan at that, I am still not sure how to process this. I don't want to rationalize it. I would only embarrass myself more than my team has already embarrassed me by making excuses for what was clearly an ill-advised, unethical act.

But at the same time, I'm desperate to find a way to make this less excruciating to contemplate. It hits me right where I live as a Pats fan--it calls into question the capabilities as well as the ethics of the vaunted Patriots coaching staff, right up to the head coach. And, because it involves the offensive play calling, you know who else could also be right at the center of it. Add on top of that the dogmatic scouting report on Brady--not as long on athletic ability as some of his counterparts but smart, poised, and gifted at reading defenses--and this news has the potential to take his reputation down right along with everything else.

The biggest thing I'm still struggling with personally is exactly what type of advantage the theft of signals via videotape in-game really conferred on the Patriots. I've heard as many opinions on this as I've heard people talking about the situation (read: many), but it's something I'm going to have to suss out for myself, and come to my own conclusion about.

The silver lining is that this can't have involved every player or every member of the Patriots organization. It doesn't change the fact that I still admire the Krafts for the way they've run the business end of the organization. And it doesn't change the fact that the Patriots are my hometown team.

But that's also what makes it so hard.

The one voice that's struck me most in all this has been the one of Ellis Hobbs, whose reaction when asked about the situation was much like mine when I first heard about it: hurt bewilderment and confusion. And the following statement: "We put too many hours in as individuals and as a team to have to go out there and cheat. We take pride in what we do."

And I believe that he does. I believe that 99% of the organization does. But right now, a minority within the team have made it so all that hard work, from everyone, is open to question and doubt. No matter what outlook I settle on about this situation as a whole, whoever they are--and right now I count Bill Belichick among them, as his position affords him no excuse of ignorance--I cannot defend them at all.

September 10, 2007

A hateful P.S. to my last post: the Patriots offensive line: reason to rejoice...or cheating?

No sooner do I finish catching up with the game and writing up my rapturous post about how great the offensive line was, than I happen to read the comment on Jamie's game review below. And then was immediately a-Googling.

The Patriots may have crossed the line between gamesmanship and cheating Sunday in their win over the Jets. And apparently it isn't the first time the Patriots have taken part in such high-tech and illegal espionage.The NFL confirmed it is looking into an incident that arose during the game when a Patriots employee was confronted by the Jets and league security while filming on the Jets' sideline at Giants Stadium. The camera and its contents were confiscated and, according to a report, placed in a sealed box and forwarded to the league. It is believed the cameraman was recording hand signals used by coaches to relay defensive plays onto the field, a violation of NFL rules.The Patriots racked up 431 yards in a 38-14 win. Tom Brady and Randy Moss picked away at the Jets' coverages and the offensive linemen were able to pick up the Jets' blitzes as if they knew what was coming. Maybe they did.

My immediate reaction was: First Rodney Harrison, and now this. I've always feared in my heart of hearts that something like this would happen--that things would surface that would pick away at the pedestal I've put the Patriots on as a fan. First Rodney Harrison, the public spokesperson for the Patriots Way, falls from grace. Now this.

I did find one comment on another blog that at least helped me keep alive one tiny flicker of ridiculous optimism that this might turn out to be bogus:

The Patriots allegedly stole signals during the Detroit and Green Bay games last year. Teams' opponents are set by the league through 2009. The Patriots don't play either the Lions or the Packers until at least 2010. The signals will be worthless by then (even if Matt Millen is still GM in Detroit). Why would you steal signals via videotape? What's the plan? Sell the tapes on eBay?

So what about stealing signals for use in the current game?

There's nothing you can get in the heat of the action with a video camera that you can't get with a pair of binoculars.

The allegations ludicrous and irrational. There is clearly no motive for videotaping signals of opponents you're not going to face for years, and there's no motive to videotape signals for use during the game in which they're taped.

It would be just like the Jets to bring the discourse to this level with the Patriots because they got their asses kicked. [Ed. note--sarcasm.] For it is written on the gates of heaven, that teams from New York and Boston shall hate one another.

But then I start thinking about who's on the other side of the ball, and why there might be a little bitterness going on between the two sides. And then I remember that Mangini used to be on our side of the ball. And might have known what to check for on the Patriots sideline...?

On the other hand, if the Patriots supposedly do this habitually, why wouldn't the Jets have done this sooner? Things haven't exactly been all sweetness and light between the teams up until now.

Maybe other Pats fans will call me out for not immediately rising to the team's defense, no questions asked. I am, of course, going to wait for the facts to come in--but with my fingers definitely crossed. It just worries me, because if the investigation reveals the accusations to be truthful, it would put a terrible taste in my mouth about a game that had been 100% positive. I'm just hoping it's not true.

September 03, 2007

No sooner am I giddy about the Patriots' offensive brilliance and defensive solidity in the preseason contest with Carolina than two weeks blink by in a whirlwind of Red Sox tragedy and triumph, work intensity, wedding errands, meetings and endless planning, and next thing you know we're talking about Troy Brown AND Richard Seymour on the PUP list, Rodney Harrison admitting to using HGH, and Randy Moss still nowhere near the field. My father has taken to saying things like, "Well, there goes that undefeated season now."

Oh, come off it. You'd gotten a little cocky, too. We all had. And if the health and / or suspension status of everyone was still the same as it was two weeks ago, we all still would be. I was personally preparing a downright schmoopy post for this blog about looking forward to what was sure to be a classic Patriots season, and beginning to grow nostalgic for everything from cheering through my scarf in a driving snowstorm to the smell of charcoal briquettes in the cold. And the Patriots had even started to return to their familiar role as my security blanket and the bearer of my sorrows when everything in the world of the Sox turned to crap, a role they have borne patiently and steadfastly for the better part of a decade.

I'm not saying they still can't be, and I still believe this Patriots season has the potential to be an astounding one. My confidence in the Patriots system and its roster depth has far more historical track record to back it up and far more all-time-classic success stories under its belt than any such belief I have in the Red Sox; in that way I am actually a better fan when it comes to my football team, less inclined to doubt and criticize, and panic when the chips fall where they may.

But this Rodney Harrison thing.

I have been known to take a hard-line view on matters relating to performance-enhancing drugs in both the sports I follow. I wish to God there had been some way to prevent Barry Bonds, whom I consider both a terrible person and an unconscionable cheater, from breaking Hank Aaron's record, and I have gone on record wondering aloud how many federal juries Jason Giambi has to admit he cheated to before he's prevented from continuing to play baseball. And through it all I have fully acknowledged that this particular Angel of Death may one day visit itself upon one of my own, and dreaded the day it would.

There are just two considerations that prevent Rodney Harrison from being dead to me--the fact that he used HGH in order to try to fight his way back from injuries the last two seasons, and the fact that the alleged dates of his use don't happen to taint any Patriots championships. After some thought, I did decide that warrants at least some consideration as an important difference between the case of Harrison and those who took substances while healthy in order to inflate individual career numbers or give themselves a totally artificial advantage.

But I'm also mad at him. Or, more like mad because of him. I wish he hadn't felt like he had no other option.

And I'm mad at him, in a weird way, for taking himself away from me as one of my unassailable, unvarnished favorites, turning into a guy I whose name I have to preface with a disclaimer or defend to fans of other teams, even more than early in his tenure with the Pats when he still carried a reputation as a dirty hitter. For taking himself away from his younger teammates as the reformed headhunter, the squeaky-clean veteran who has found Jesus and Bill Belichick and is there to tell you you best recognize the Patriots way, Junior. I may still find a way to reconcile my affection for him against my stance on performance-enhancing drugs, but he will never be quite the same totally righteous guy to me again.

Those other guys can eventually come back from their injuries. The Rodney Harrison I've known and loved unconditionally through all the ups and downs of the last few years, probably not so much.

July 04, 2007

The NFL has passed two new rules this off-season under new commissioner Roger Goodell, both of which will affect the Patriots--and one of which might be attributable directly to a Patriots player.

The first rule, which drew a major uproar from fans (though the rule won't affect fans): alcohol has been banned from all official NFL team functions, including, as this ESPN headline helpfully lists, players, owners, coaches and guests. This includes team buses, airplanes, parties...you get the idea.

The rule is similar to some also enacted in Major League Baseball after Josh Hancock, a relief pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals, was killed in a car crash while driving drunk. Some Major League clubhouses are now banning beer and some teams are also putting the ixnay on booze at team events.

Meanwhile, more recently, the NFL announced that it will be enacting new procedures around head injuries and concussions. To wit (from an article on Football.com):

Neuropsychological baseline testing will be required for all NFL players beginning this season, using a standardized test to establish an individual functional baseline.

An NFL MTBI conference will be held on June 19 in Chicago for all NFL team physicians and athletic trainers to share the most up-to-date information on state-of-the-art care and management of concussions.

evaluation procedures used by NFL teams will be shared among all medical and training staffs.

The NFL rule requiring every player to wear a chin strap that is completely and properly buckled to the helmet will be strictly enforced. Teams and players will not be permitted to modify the attachment of the chin strap to the helmet or improperly modify the helmet in any other way. The longstanding safety-related rules related to the use of the helmet also will be strictly enforced.

The NFL will establish a “whistle blower” system so that anyone may anonymously report any incident in which a doctor is pressured to return a player to play from a concussion or that a player with a concussion is pressured to play.

Once again, the case of one player has spurred the NFL to action on this issue--this time one of our own, Ted Johnson.

This time it was the publication by the Globe's Jackie MacMullan about Ted Johnson's chronic health problems now that he has retired, which he attributes to years of repeated concussions and being pushed to play before it was medically advisable to do so.

One could argue that both rules stem from the same sentiment in the commissioner's office: the league must do a better job protecting the health and safety of its players.

A commendable attitude, to be sure, but I have to say I see both these regulations very differently. To me, the cases of Josh Hancock and Ted Johnson could not be more different, especially if they are to be the basis for new policies across professional sports leagues.

A return to Prohibition?

From what the public has been made aware of in Hancock's case, the pitcher had a longstanding issue with alcohol and drugs. That night, he had been drinking not in a clubhouse but in a bar far away from his team's ballpark. The bartender tried to get him to take a cab, but he refused. He was also talking on a cell phone and speeding when he slammed into the back of a tow truck and was killed instantly.

In Hancock's case there is some argument that intervention was necessary, on the part of his Cardinals organization, management and teammates. There is the urge to make such intervention mandatory, to build in some safety mechanism.

But the plain fact of the matter is that some people have problems with addiction--and those people, if you believe the principles of AA, have always been and will always be addicts. It doesn't mean that they cannot be helped--but it has been well established throughout our nation's history that the prohibition of a substance for people without addiction problems does little to change the situation of those who do. In other words, Josh Hancock's teammates--and he--could have been prohibited from drinking beer in the clubhouse at the time of his death, and it would not have altered the course of events one iota. That bar would still have been open. Josh Hancock would still have been a problem drinker. That rule serves only to punish other law-abiding adults who do not have problems with drinking; when it comes to the other Josh Hancocks hiding out there among the Major League ranks, the ban will only push them out of the relative safety (and convenience) of the clubhouse and into off-site establishments if they want to drink. Hence more of them will be driving to said establishments--and away from them again. If anything, the new prohibition in some Major League clubhouses could make more Josh Hancock cases more likely, not less.

Pacman Jones and his famous troubles might also be behind the thinking of Goodell when it comes to the NFL alcohol ban. But again, not allowing booze at team events means that unless players are contractually obligated to appear at those events, many are probably more likely to blow them off. As in the case of baseball, the NFL's draconian measures when it comes to alcohol will drive the Pacman Joneses away from NFL-supervised events and toward the strip clubs.

And there is also the matter of the fact that alcohol is legal, and the NFL is attempting to regulate the legal behavior of all its adult employees--not just players. The NFL is, in effect, saying that it does not trust its employees, on and off the field, to drink responsibly. Which frankly is not something I think should be an employer's business or decision to make.

Helmet laws: live free and / or die?

So, you could also argue, the helmet regulations are a similar thing--where the alcohol ban has analogies in laws that are debated in wider society nearly constantly, helmet bylaws have multiple analogies in civil law as well. Many of the same "nanny government" arguments have been made about motorcycle helmet laws, for example.

But here's where I think it's different. Here, rather than trying to regulate the choices of employees in a social setting, the NFL is taking long-overdue action to correct a problem that occurs on its field of play and over which it has undisputed direct control. It's debatable what say the league has in what happens to players outside the locker room and field turf, but what happens to them--and their bodies--in the course of playing duties is incontrovertibly within the NFL's purview, and something that has warranted more action from the league for years.

It seems like such a little detail--and it is--but I for one was happy to see the chin strap issue in particular be addressed. I have noticed any number of players unbuckling chin straps between plays and then leaving them flapping when it comes time to break the huddle, and I've always wondered if someone shouldn't nudge them and say, what are you stupid? Put that helmet back on right. Since no one did, I then concluded that maybe the chin strap didn't matter as much as I think it did.

Turns out it did--and all the unbuckling I've seen is just a function of the unique psychology of the professional athlete, especially the young professional athlete, who believes himself to be invincible. And like I said, it is a very little titchy detail.

But ask Ted Johnson how he feels now about those little details he dismissed. This is a place where the NFL has the example of many of its retirees to demonstrate the effects of the "invincible" attitude on a person's body and mind long-term. This is a place where the NFL has the means and motivation to improve its procedures, and those improvements will have a direct effect on the quality of life for all players. Most importantly, this is a place where the NFL has a responsibility to work toward a better outlook for its players once they're done playing for a franchise and want to enjoy the fruits of their labors.

It's been interesting to see these new edicts come down the pike this off-season. I think both are well-intentioned. But I'm hoping only one of them stands up long-term.

April 01, 2007

It is difficult for me, as a completely chauvinistic New England sports fan, to tear my mind away from the specific news related to my particular teams long enough to pay attention to the larger national picture. Luckily for me this week, not much else is happening (besides the beginning of baseball season, of course--Go Sox!), forcing both me and Mike Reiss to turn our attention to the national stage and the NFL owners' meetings in Phoenix.

Among other things, the NFL owners voted to make instant replay a permanent part of the game, a ruling that will necessitate the rewiring of stadiums. A wire story puts the estimated cost of the new rule at $300,000 per team for high-definition video equipment. According to a NY Post article, three stadiums, including Giants Stadium, the Colts' RCA Dome and the Cowboys' Texas Stadium, which are "soon to be replaced" will be exempt from the ruling.

I am shocked that instant replay was not already a permanent part of the NFL. It's 2007, after all--and film is an integral part of football, as much a part of the way our culture processes the sport as writing is to baseball. When the Red Sox won the World Series, the major effect was the felling of countless extra acres of rainforest to produce the massive library of books documenting every aspect of that postseason. Baseball is the only major sport with regular coverage (via the masterful Roger Angell) in The New Yorker. Football-related books are far fewer and further between, a fact that, as a writer and a reader, I have often lamented.

The consolation, though, is the artistic heights to which people have taken football through film, the shining example of which, of course, is NFL Films. Every year there seems to be new video technology making football explode off the screen in ever more vivid color, until finally the filmed version of the game has become somehow clearer than the in-person experience. I can attest to this from personal experience, although this might also be because my first-person experience tends to be on the third deck.

Film is the chosen medium of football, and the sport has been designed to match, from the visually impressive players to their gaudily colored uniforms to the sharp artifice of the turf on which they play--it's all for the camera's benefit. There's a reason they don't hang video cameras on wires over baseball diamonds, but they do over football stadiums.

And, of course, video has become part of the game itself, whether it's instant replay on game-day or film study by players and coaches leading up to weekly games. How many times have we heard Coach Belichick answer a question on a particular play at a press conference with, "I'll have to watch the film"? No longer do we trust the eye-witness view of even the experts on the field more than we do the video feed. It's as if the authentic experience of football now lies in the finished, filmed, edited, slow-motion product of the cameras rather than the information fed the old-fashioned way to our brain through our actual eyes.

The only reason I can think that film hasn't been recognized as a permanent and vital tool for the understanding of the sport is that maybe there was some about the reality of football as the highly modernized industry it's become, an unwillingness to let go of that romanticized image of old-fashioned leather helmets, Vince Lombardi puffing out frozen breath on the sideline, a time when men were men and what was ruled on the field stayed the ruling. Maybe that's what kept the league from making this ruling years ago. Then again, didn't all those images we hold so dear get passed down to us on grainy film?

Purists may still find fault with the role of technology in play on the field, but I agree with Falcons general manager Rich McKay, co-chairman of the competition committee that recommended the change, when he says of instant replay, "It's what we are."

Another ruling from the owners' meeting Pats fans might have an interest in is the revenue-sharing deal that was finally hammered out in detail this year (after the bare bones language specifying the general intention of the agreement was voted through last year). According to an article in, of all places, The Jerusalem Post,

Ultimately, it was a plan by Patriots president Jonathan Kraft that called for higher revenue owners to contribute money to a pot that was to be allocated to lower revenue teams based on a set of qualifiers that allowed owners to come to an agreement last year. The agreement was, however, ambiguous because it simply said that money would be shared between NFL teams, but was vague about how the money would be shared.

NFL owners finally agreed to a set of qualifiers at last week's meetings. The plan allows low-revenue teams to receive additional money based on ticket sales, the age of their stadium, and the amount they spend on players...Kraft was instrumental in both agreements.

Excuse me while I put on my homer hat for a moment: one of my favorite things about being a Patriots fan is the pride we can take in our team's organization, above and beyond the wins and losses.

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